Chapter 8 - The Package
I drove home so fast Ben had to tell me twice to slow down.
The package sat on the kitchen counter.
Inside was the photograph Vanessa had supposedly thrown away months ago.
Sarah holding baby Lily at the beach.
One of my favorite pictures in the world.
Across Sarah’s face, someone had written:
DEAD WOMEN DON’T WIN.
I felt something inside me shut off.
Not explode.
Shut off.
Vanessa wanted anger.
She wanted me reckless.
She wanted another slap.
Another video.
Another mistake.
I wasn’t giving her one.
“Bag it,” Ben said.
“What?”
“Don’t keep touching it. Police.”
We called.
The security camera had captured the delivery.
A man in a baseball cap walked up, dropped the package, and left.
It wasn’t Vanessa.
But the police traced his car through a neighbor’s camera.
The man turned out to be Vanessa’s cousin, Travis.
When officers questioned him, he said Vanessa had asked him to “drop off a box.”
He claimed he didn’t know what was inside.
Vanessa denied everything.
Of course she did.
That night, Lily climbed into my bed.
“Can I sleep here?”
“Anytime.”
She curled beside me.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Did Vanessa hate Mommy?”
I stared into the dark.
“No one who never knew your mom gets to take anything away from her.”
“But Vanessa said you loved Mommy more.”
I swallowed.
“I did love your mom.”
“More than Vanessa?”
Children ask simple questions that adults spend their lives trying to avoid.
“Yes,” I said.
Lily was quiet.
“Was that bad?”
“No.”
“Then why was Vanessa mad?”
“Because some people think love is like a pie.”
“A pie?”
“They think if somebody else gets a piece, there’s less left for them.”
Lily thought about that.
“But love isn’t pie.”
I smiled in the dark.
“No, baby. It isn’t.”
The next morning, the internet story changed.
Someone posted the full birthday video.
It wasn’t me.
It was Jason.
He had watched Vanessa’s live stream and lost his temper.
The video went viral faster than hers had.
Now people saw everything.
Vanessa grabbing the cake.
Lily asking why.
Vanessa telling her to shut up.
Me stepping in.
The slap was still wrong.
I said that publicly.
I didn’t defend it.
But the lie that I attacked Vanessa for nothing collapsed.
Her comment section turned.
Fast.
Vanessa deleted her account by afternoon.
I thought that meant she was retreating.
Ben didn’t.
“She’s losing control of the public story,” he said.
“So?”
“So she’ll try to control the private one.”
At 4:17 p.m., a woman from Child Protective Services knocked on my door.
She showed me her identification.
“We received an urgent report concerning Lily.”
My stomach dropped.
“What kind of report?”
She opened her folder.
“An allegation that you’ve been physically abusing your daughter.”
I stared at her.
Then at Ben.
Vanessa had changed targets.
May you like
This time, she wasn’t trying to destroy my reputation.
She was trying to take Lily away.
